#122 - Phoenix Coloured Leaf Buds

And just like that, the year is over. We all walked to the park, my husband and I and the three children, and we climbed up the hills which look like they were meant to be a bike track but are covered in grass and beautiful with white yarrow and purple clover and yellow buttercups in the autumn and we scattered the ashes we had collected from the vets and said goodbye. Then we walked back and past a tree with tiny copper-coloured buds, like flames, or like phoenix feathers. Even before the old year has quite finished, the new one begins. 

#121 - Seed Heads on Stone

Beautiful shapes, Rosebay Willowherb seed heads curve so wonderfully. This was a hurried picture, but I like the lines and the non-colours. All the year bleached white and gone. I picked up the ashes from the vets today and tomorrow the children and I will take them to our special park and scatter them on the hills.

#120 - Laurestine

The winter sunshine keeps enticing me out. Of course this shrub isn't native to the UK but it is nonetheless cheering on a cold day when not much else is out.

#119 - Leaf Skeleton

Something beautiful about Winter - you get down to the bare bones. All this exquisite filigree inside a leaf and you only get to see it when the wind and the rain have worn away the green flesh. Just the bare bones. And it should look grotesque but instead it is like a hidden treasure being slowly revealed.

#118 - Purple Deadnettle

Saw these lovely purple nettles in the field outside my sister's house, they remind me of crouching down in the back garden as a child and seeing the weeds growing by the wall, nettles with purple and white flowers, we used to suck the white flowers because they were sweet like honey. 

#117 - Boxing Day Colours

Today looked so beautiful and sunshiny. Forced myself out of my chocolate-filled cocoon and took the children out to a nearby park. It is rather a dull park. I walked a little by myself while they played and saw some colour over by the fence. I found this very prickly shrub that had some bright leaves tucked in its spiny, evergreen heart - orange, crimson and a deep burgundy. I picked a few and walked back over to the swings, holding my bounty carefully. There is something so amazing about colour, it speaks like music I think, in a way you can't explain.

#116 - Christmas Day

God bless us, everyone!

#115 - Seed heads

Made it outside today, in between hailstorms. I've lost my Heroic Dogwalker image, now I'm just a sad lady walking in the rain. Love these neat little seed-heads though, the way they glimmer white even in the rain.

#114 - Bracket Fungi

I have a little confession to make, the last couple of days have been photos taken in the last few weeks, before the dog died. Somehow the joy has gone out of walking, I miss seeing the dog's plumey white tail ahead of me and I certainly can't face visiting our local park where she was run over. So this is another photo taken not too long ago, but not this week. Maybe tomorrow I'll get out there again...

#113 - Rain on Pine Needles

There is just something about being out in the woods in the rain, it makes me think of the Paul Simon song, 'The sound of silence.' 

#112 - Three Hearts

Three little Shepherds Purse seed pods.

#111 - Red Leaves

Was shuffling though the leaves as the children played at the park today, feeling cold and miserable but couldn't help noticing these rather spectacular red leaves that were tumbled in the mud with the black and brown ones.

#110 - December Blossom

We didn't quite make it to the park yesterday, at the gate I let the dog off the lead but instead of bounding joyfully into the park as usual, she turned and ran straight under a lorry. Her injuries were so extensive that later that day she had to be put to sleep. I noticed this little blossom tree last week but it seemed far too early to be posting Spring pictures, today though, I went back and found it. My heart is heavy with sadness, my head  full of the ugly images of yesterday morning - suffering and death are such a horrible part of life, and yet, ultimately I believe life has the last word. I choose to remember her like this.

#109 - Old Willow

These old willow leaves were lying on the grass today, black and silver. Even all rain-sodden they still look elegant - mono-chromic and graceful on the mud.

#108 - Winter Leaf Flower

I don't know what this shrub is, I've seen it a few times and came across it again in the woods. One of the few patches of colour now most of the other trees have lost their foliage. It has small, bright leaves, almost like petals, in shades of red and orange. 

#107 - Reindeer Lichen

All Christmassy again, but only by accident this time. I found this bunch of feathery lichen under the oak trees in our park, it must have fallen from the high branches where it would have been quite difficult for the local reindeer to reach, except the flying ones of course!

#106 - Leyland Cypress

I love the blue-black tips on this cypress foliage. And the way the colour graduates from pale green to a richer, darker tone. It all looks so perfect.

#105 - Birch Catkin Bracts

I was admiring the catkins on a silver birch and thinking how they looked like little strings of beads. I tried to pick one and it fell apart in my hand, and, lo and behold, lots of tiny seeds and fleur de lis shaped bracts, just like beads on a necklace. 

#104 - Ivy Flowers

Ivy is everywhere, right? But I never noticed it had flowers, which is shameful, and they look so exotic as well, these have lost all their little extra petals and still look wonderful. Happened to read the other day that in the language of flowers ivy means fidelity and friendship. Had  I learnt that last year I would have thought it a shame that such a dull plant should symbolise something so profound. Now I think it rather fitting. And I keep seeing it everywhere, telegraph poles, fences, corners of car parks, walls - even in the city, ivy is everywhere. Common Ivy, which still manages to be a little out of the ordinary.

#103 - Starry, starry night...

Aren't these the most beautiful dead weeds you ever saw? They are like van Gogh stars, trailing glory across the heavens, or dancing comets, or even delicate sea-creatures that live far away from sunlight, weightless in the water and the darkness...

#102 - Mistletoe

We were staying in Herefordshire last night and took the dog round the fields this morning. The sun was bright on the row of bare poplars opposite the house and as I turned into a new field I saw this mistletoe, high up in the tree. As I stepped towards the trunk to try and reach up and get some, a pheasant flew up from practically under my feet, and flapped heavily off over the farmland. I've never seen mistletoe in the wild before so I am disproportionately delighted with my find.

White-fruited Rowen

I saw this tree from across the park and thought it was covered in blossom, on closer inspection it was thick with clusters of these white berries. each tipped with a tiny, five-pointed star. I love the pink blush on some of them too.

#100 - Blackberry flower

An audacious blackberry flower - in December! I have concluded that the bramble is absolutely without any sense of propriety. I rather like it's bold, bad style and am happy to celebrate 100 days of looking at the beautiful with this humble, hedgerow pest which seems to embody all that has been surprising about this hundred day journey. 

#99 - Parasol Mushrooms

After much umming and ahhing, I think these might be Mycena arcangeliana, but either way, they looked gorgeous in the woods this morning, growing on a tree stump. My daughter said they look like dresses from Strictly Come Dancing. 

#98 - Rainbow Feather

Sometimes you have to look hard to find something beautiful, pay attention to the landscape. Sometimes, something just appears in front of you, as if it has fallen from the sky...

#97 - Wild Turnip on Orange Lichen

Some pretty, wild turnip I noticed by the path today. I like the way the fresh yellow petals bring out the colour of the lichen on the wood.

#96 - Starry Sky

One day we turned a different way in the park and found a path that led into a wood and, after a while of following it between the trees, we came to a flight of steps, about twenty, that led down and down into the sunshine. The meadow at the bottom has the most enormous stalks of Wild Chervil that reach far overhead. It's like something out of Jules Verne. I can't wait to see it in the Spring time but at the moment the giant stems with their dried out heads are like starry coronets against the sky. 

#95 - Bracken Fern Reflection

The woods were beautiful this morning, even with most of the trees now being bare and the rich Autumn colours giving way to muted Winter hues. Where the leaves were there are now spaces and intricate silhouettes which lie on the water rather wonderfully.

#94 - Green Fungi Rose

Okay, okay, I know it's twice in one week but isn't this worth repeating myself? And I never even noticed it. What a wonderful world we live in.

#93 - Acorn cups in Bank Haircap Moss

I have been admiring all the gloriously green, trailing moss in the woods this Autumn, and then this morning we, the children and I, were hunched down underneath an Oak tree looking at some mushrooms and we found this starry, cushiony moss in between the roots. It was spangled with tiny little acorn cups that had fallen and got caught in it, like little, round flowers.

#92 - Sunlight behind Beech Leaves

I thought the leaves were like stained glass, translucent in the sun. The light illuminates the colours so that they are alive and the dying leaves, radiant.

#91 - Folded Linden Leaves

Not everything makes a dramatic photograph but I am in love with the subtle graduations of colour that make up the autumn tree-scape. This Linden tree hardly changed at all, just faded gently from green to pale yellow and then, almost with a sigh, laid down its heart-shaped leaves. 

#90 - Fungi rose

I never imagined having a favourite fungi but the Trametes versicolor blossoms beautifully on the edges of fallen trees in wavering lines of grey. 

#89 - Leaves holding Sunlight

When the beech leaves are on the edge of dying they curl slightly. Darkening to copper they hold the sunlight, glowing like embers in the woods. 

#88 - Frosted Leaves

First frosty morning walk of the year for us.I had been up in the hills taking photographs of the sunlight coming through the leaves and when I came down onto lower ground I suddenly noticed I was walking on grass that was crisp and white, and the edges of the leaves and their veins were rimed with crystals. And my heart gave a little leap.

#87 - Path

Visiting the cousins today in Wolverhampton. I have missed going out every day this week, I've been working and the days are so short. I think I could take photos of autumnal beech leaves all year round. I have a new dream home, as well as being by a lake it now needs to be in a beech wood. 

#86 - Whitebeam

I have been eyeing these trees from across the park for a few weeks now as they are strikingly multi-coloured, green leaves mixing with shades of yellow and red deepening to a rich burgundy. I had no idea what kind of tree they were and wondered if they were some kind of ornamental species as they are so, well...ornamental. Apparently, they are native but uncommon in the wild which would explain why I've never seen one. 

#85 - Shades of Gold

Every tree seems to have a different palette. Even the same types of tree - the maple next to this one had leaves of just a slightly duller gold, a little muddier. This particular tree was radiant this morning, just glowing. 

#84 - River Edge

The field maple has been pale gold for weeks now, I think it was the first to change. It's not as gorgeous as some of the other maples with their rich ochres and coppers but it's lighter yellow tones have a light-hearted quality, less majestic, more like cheerfulness.

#83 - Convolvulus

Convolvulus twisting round coloured stems in the undergrowth. This photo seems somehow fitting for today which has been bitter-sweet, saying goodbye to a friend who lived her life well. 

#82 - Colourful roots

More beech leaves - this time I had the children with me so we all collected different colour leaves, well, me and the two girls, the boy gave up after finding a few green leaves and announced that his hands were "pale". I assume he meant "cold" because he put them in his pockets and played at skidding down the banks while we carried on with tree dressing.

#81 - Fallen Leaves

A carpet of maple leaves...

"...I place my feet with care in such a world" (from The Well Rising, William Stafford)

#80 - Empty Acorn Cups

I love these white rimmed Acorn Cups, circles within circles, so crisp against the green grass. I must crush half a dozen with every step I take in our park but how perfectly composed they are even when their usefulness has passed.

#79 - Circle of Beech Leaves

I think the whole reason I started this blog was so that I could stand in the woods this morning, in the rain, and arrange beech leaves into rings of colour. As  I worked in the mud I heard myself whistling softly, "Joyful, Joyful, Lord we Adore Thee" and I don't know if it was because  the creating was making me feel so happy or because the trees seemed aflame with glory.

#78 - Autumn Colours

A traditional Autumn wreath; burgundy, russet, copper and sunshine yellow. Maple leaves again I think, their leaves are like the way children paint Autumn leaves. They are carpeting the park beautifully, we wade through pools of gold every day.

#77 - Tortoiseshell Fungi

More Tremetes Versicolor, this one with beautiful tortoiseshell stripes.

#76 - Holes in a Beech Leaf

Shorter days make me sad but there is something about the sun hanging so low in the sky, it's a different sort of light and it looks at its best coming through trees.

#75 - Peacock coloured Fungi

Walking through the woods yesterday, in the rain, we kept stopping to admire all the fungi. There are lots of clusters near the waters edge, the children call them 'mushroom cities' because they look like miniature citadels or fantasy castles with higgledy-piggledy roofs and towers. Some of the trees have fungi 'steps' climbing their trunks and when we looked closer at one particularly be-fungied tree we saw all these wonderful colours. It's called Trametes Versicolor, or commonly, Turkey Tail, but I think these blue and greens look more like a peacock's tail. Stunning. 

#74 - Copper Beech Leaf Buds

We were admiring the catkins on the beech trees in a local park, letting the dog run whilst waiting for the littlest girl to come out of nursery, I was thinking the park was rather unremarkable when I suddenly came across a tree with purple catkins and exquisite little purple leaf buds.

#73 - Rowan Berries

I wasn't too keen on the gaudy orange berries of the Rowan trees but they have now turned to a delicious scarlet and lie  in glistening pools under the trees, contrasting with the rain-blackened twigs.